Saturday, October 15, 2011

Backfill and Utilities

I'm back from my vacation. It's been over a month since my last update, and quite a bit of groundwork has been done. The exterior walls were covered with a tar-like substance for waterproofing. A 2" layer of foam insulation was then placed on top, followed by a drainage mat. Finally, drainage pipes were added around the perimeter of the foundation. The end result is that when water approaches the foundation, it falls through the drainage mat down into the piping without ever touching the foundation walls. The insulation is so that I can keep the interior walls as exposed concrete. Here's what it looks like altogether:

After that, it was time to backfill the lot. The large pile of dirt in the neighboring lot was distributed back over to my lot and mixed in with some gravel to provide better drainage.

The neighboring lot

Backfilled lot

Suddenly I have lots more room on my lot! It's really starting to take form. The final steps in the groundwork are to run the utility pipes and pour the final two sections of foundation wall to connect the driveway retaining walls with the foundation. The first step is underway. The driveway is now all torn up for the utility pipes:

When the driveway gets put back together, we can pour the remaining sections of wall.